


creature from the lightless body of inland water: eridan, karkat

by coldhope



Series: HHCOD fills [17]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Troll Gills, hhcod request ficlet, oil spill, vaguely pale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 19:12:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/653504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldhope/pseuds/coldhope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ampora H/C request ficlet: what if Eridan got caught in the troll equivalent of an oil spill?</p>
            </blockquote>





	creature from the lightless body of inland water: eridan, karkat

hachiart asked eridan-hc-on-demand: 

What if Eridan got caught in the troll equivalent of an oil spill? Probably mess with him a bit and he'd need some help getting it off?

~

The worst thing isn't the foul glop clogging your gills, or the unspeakable taste-smell in your mouth and throat, or the profound miserable pain of your lateral cervical sensors broadcasting the fact that you are coated in poison. Those aren't great, but what's even worse is that _you can't see_. Your nictitating membranes hadn't been fast enough to protect your eyes from the spill, and you are getting quietly more and more panicked at the thought of being permanently blind. Sticking your face in the water and blinking rapidly makes the pain worse, but it's the only thing you can think of to do, and you have to keep coming up for air because your gills are currently on strike.

You're not even sure how you didn't see it coming; the green light of late evening had filtered down through the water weirdly, through a film of something you didn't bother to acknowledge, and it was only when you were already far too close to the surface, too close to avoid contact, that your sensors screamed at you to stop. Then everything had gone horrible. 

The stuff burns, cold and slimy at the same time, its petrochemical reek reaching immediately down your throat and turning your digestive sac inside out; even now, something like twenty minutes later, you can't stop gagging. Your diaphragm hurts, knotting up over and over, the muscles of your chest and stomach ache. You _can't fucking see_ and you are trying, trying real hard, to use what senses you have left to orient yourself and try to head for home. 

~

It's a combination of dumb luck and determination that eventually get you back to your island. You hadn't been far in any case, and after a _lot_ of underwater blinking you could see blurry colors and light versus dark, which was enough to tell you where the moon was in the sky, which was enough to tell you which direction you were pointing. Your eyes still hurt like hell, but at least you think they might eventually start working properly again. The rest of you, well...

You wipe off as much of it as you can, not liking how the touch of the towel (which is now fit for nothing but the incinerator) stings against your skin. Ugh, you are going to be one giant purple hive unless you get this shit off you, and you can't...really manage that on your own.

You can't tell Fef about this. Ever. And Captor would never stop laughing that insufferable _eheheheheh_ laugh of his, even if his psionics would probably be able to clean this shit off you without having to use harsh detergent. Kanaya...you don't want her to see you like this. 

Of the people who give you the time of night on a regular basis that leaves Kar.

CA: hepl kar in need yoy  
CA: utrn on vorce chat   
CG: WHAT THE FUCK.   
CG: ERIDAN, GET OFF THE INTERNET, YOU'RE DRUNK.   
CA: pkease kar cabt see good   
CG: ...  
CG: THE HELL HAPPENED?   
CG: SHIT.

"Eridan?" he demands, his voice tinny over your little husktop speakers. You stop squinting at the screen, with relief.

"Yeah. Sorry-- _hlk_ \--" You sound lousy even to yourself, your voice clogged; even the act of speaking makes you gag again. Your gills shift painfully. "Can you come over?"

"Eridan, what the _shit_ is wrong with you, are you okay, what happened?" 

"Lubricant spill." It's better if you don't open your mouth too much. 

"Lubri...oh, jesus fuck." Something on his end of the connection clatters. "--Okay, yeah, uh, what do you need? Did you call Feferi already?"

" _No_ , she can't...know about it, shit's-- _hlk_ \--lethally fuckin embarrassin, Kar, just...get over here an bring whatever detergents you got." You manage not to cough, because you're pretty sure if you did that the crap that's already in your gills is likely to get dragged further in.

"...Right," he says. "Uh. Just. Hang in there, okay, I'm leaving now."

 

~

 

It is far from the first time Eridan Ampora's shrieked for help from you, but you've never heard him sound like _that_ before. Mostly it's been little shit like, help, Kar, I ate a bad oyster an I think I'm dyin, or help, Kar, I embarrassed the shit out a myself on some online datin website, what do. This is different. You can't help picturing those schoolfeeding films, vast green-black lubricant spills coating the sea and turning featherbeasts into bedraggled slick-slimy lumps. You can't help picturing something a lot larger than a featherbeast, with jagged lightning-bolt horns, coated in that toxic glop.

You weren't far off the mark. 

When you jumped down to the deck of his incredibly inconveniently located shiphive you noticed the stains of lubricant coming up the side, over the rail, and down the companionway: footprints in reeking green-black sludge. 

Following them down, you bang on the door, and after a while there's a shuffling from inside and it opens to reveal the Creature from the Lightless Body of Inland Water. He's _covered_ in the stuff, although you can see he's made some attempts to wipe it off; the delicate curves of his gills are a clotted black slodgy mess, his earfins' membranes drooping under the weight of it, his eyes bloodshot violet and puffy in a face that looks as if it's been lacquered green-black. 

"Oh my _fuck_ ," you breathe. He blinks miserably at you. "You're horrific."

"Thag you bery buch." He glowers at you, or at least you think that's what he's doing, and then gives a miserable little hiccup-gag. "Did you-- _hllk_ \--brig the detergedt?"

"What do you take me for?" You hold up two bottles of the stuff you use to wash dishes. It's the only thing you had. He just nods. "--You're going to be okay, right? Eridan?"

"Probably," he says, without much conviction. 

~

The next forty-five minutes are not a great deal of fun for either of you. At least the lubricant does come off when attacked with a strong soapy solution, but his skin's already so irritated that the soap stings terribly--even the water stings, when you rinse him off with the shower-hose. You can tell he's doing his best not to flinch away every time you approach. You try not to notice this, and fail. 

The worst part is of course cleaning out his gills. Luckily he hadn't got the stuff deep inside him, just on the surface, but even so it hurts him very badly when you have to apply detergent to the exquisitely sensitive filaments. You grimly press on, ignoring his chokes and stifled moans of pain. The second-worst is those frilly sensory things on the sides of his neck. Instead of lying flat in their little pits as they normally are, they're swollen and standing out, covered in lubricant, possibly even more sensitive than his gills themselves, and Eridan can't stifle his cries when you get to work on them. You are saving up quite a lot of bright fury to dump on whoever it was spilled this shit all over the ocean in the first place and then went away and fucking left it there. 

Eventually, eventually you're done, and you just rinse him with the blood-heat water from the shower until the heat is all used up. He's lying back against the end of the ablution trap, eyes closed, breathing hard. "Hey," you say. "Eridan. It's over, you're clean, c'mon, quit scaring me, okay?"

"'ll never be clean again," he says, but doesn't bother opening his eyes to do it. "Feel abs'lutely shockin, Kar."

"Yeah, you look pretty terrible, too. You're all purple and puffy. Is...do you have anything I should put on that?" He has hair glop, it stands to reason he'd have skin glop as well. 

That does make him crack open an eye. "Huh?"

"Your skin. Should I smear some kind of gross unguent all over you or what?"

Amazingly, he chuckles, a little thick sound. "Why, Mister Vantas."

"Shut up," you instruct. He reaches for your hand, and you help him out of the tub and give him a towel. 

~

Turns out he does have gross unguents of several different styles and properties, to your utter lack of surprise, and you can sort of forgive yourself for the past half hour because of how he droops in immediate relief when you start applying the one for sunburn. You're generous with it, smoothing palmfuls of anesthetic gel over his back and chest, dabbing it very carefully around his gills and sensors. His earfins get a delicate touch. You're concentrating so hard that you don't notice he's looking at you until he clears his throat and says "Kar?"

Big violet eyes very close there. Whoa. You sit back on your heels, your hands numb from the gel. "Yeah."

"Thank you," he says, quietly. "That was...fuckin terrible but I owe you big for doin it. Woulda been proper fucked without you."

You observe him as a whole: he is a complete wreck. Not just the partial wreck he often manages: no, this is Eridan Ampora at a serious nadir. 

"Welcome," you tell the middle distance. "You hurting any less?"

"Yeah. I just. Can. Can you stay a little while longer?"

"Sure. You kind of look like you're going to pass out, man, shouldn't you be in your cupe?"

He shakes his head. "Not...just yet. Sopor'd react badly with that sunburn shit."

"Okay, fine, what about the couch?"

"I like the couch. It appeals to me, Kar, it's got star quality."

"Come on, you loopy excuse for a brinesucker." You give him a hand up, and he leans on you, heavily--he's denser, more compact than you are, built for depth and pressure--all the way through to his leisureblock. When you try to deposit him on his couch, however, he doesn't let go. 

You look down at him. He gives you enormous _pleading_ purple eyes. Even with the lids swollen and puffy they're pretty compelling. "Stay with me?"

Ah, hell. You sit down on the couch and he immediately curls up with his head in your lap and one hand cupped around your knee, and you can't not pull the couch blanket over him and pet his shoulder. Lightly. "Going to find out who's responsible," you tell him. 

"Hmm?"

"For the spill. I don't know how but I'm going to find out who needs fucking over for that." You know it's almost impossible for you to fulfill this promise, but you kind of need to say it anyway. "Dumping waste lubricant overboard is illegal, right?"

"Technic'ly," he says, sounding drowsy. "Not like it's ever gonna be enforced though. No witnesses, no case, ask Ter."

"God damn it." You stroke one of his horns; he shivers. "I need someone to scream at, Eridan."

"Why?"

"Cause you got hurt, fuckwit, that could've been really really bad--"

"I'd prolly have survived?"

"Ugh, are you even listening to yourself? Shut up." 

"'s sweet a you, anyhow, Kar," he says, and there's zero mockery in it at all, so you have to put some there for him. 

"That's me, all right. The adjective I would select out of all the millions at my disposal to describe myself to the universe is absolutely without question 'sweet.'"

"... _fierce 'n avengin_ an sweet."

You ignore this, and pet his other horn, and he does in fact finally shut up. After a few more minutes his breathing evens out, deepens, and he droops against you in the warm heaviness of sleep.


End file.
